Salvation
by surgere
Summary: Naruto and Sasuke have had their fight to the death. Now they are trying to save each other, and they don't know it. Time travel, Naruto-centric, no yaoi, not a fix-it fic. Warning: mild Sakura bashing


Naruto and Sasuke have had their fight to the death. Now they are trying to save each other, and they don't know it. Time travel, Naruto-centric, no yaoi, not a fix-it fic.

Warning: angst and Naruto-centric. As the latter term describes, this fic is centred on Naruto. Sasuke is heavily featured as well, but this fic is about our favourite knucklehead ninja. There will be Sakura bashing.

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><p>They were finally done — Naruto lying on the ground facing up, Sasuke crouched over him looking down, both bloody, both barely conscious. Their outer layers — Rinnegan, sage mode, Sharingan, bijuu cloak — were all gone, having faded away with the last of their chakra. Onyx eyes looked into sky blue. A kunai was driven in Naruto's heart, and Sasuke's hands were around it.<p>

"Why?" Sasuke whispered. He slowly lowered his head to look, lost his strength, and braced himself with both hands on either side of Naruto's head. When he looked again, he saw it clearly: the kunai in his own chest, just a breath from his heart, Naruto's hand firmly around the kunai handle. "Why?" Sasuke asked again. He met Naruto's eyes. "I will still live!" Sasuke emphasised. Naruto weakly smiled; his clear, unrepentant eyes did not change. "Couldn't…help it…."

_My body just moved on its own._

Sasuke loathed the message.

"Have you…let go of…your anger now?" "I hate you," Sasuke said slowly. Naruto's eyes dimmed. Sasuke refused to feel regret. He refused to be like Zabuza, who let a ruthless, cold-hearted killer like himself be pierced and struck down by just a boy's words. Sasuke didn't know the full story — only that Zabuza and Haku were given unmarked graves in a forgettable land. Sasuke would not be like that.

Naruto's hand fell from the kunai. The one in his chest barely rose with every breath. "I'm glad your anger," _Drip,_ "is gone…." For a dying teen, Naruto was still startlingly perceptive. _Drip, drip._ Naruto's angles slowly shifted into a weak smile. "I haven't seen you…do that for more than three years…." Another tear hit Naruto's cheek. "…Don't start crying now." Sasuke's face was unreadable; water was falling from his eyes. The Tailed Beasts and the Shinobi Alliance were heading for them, only a second away from ripping Sasuke's body off the smiling corpse underneath.

"Dobe."

Sasuke accepted the darkness.

* * *

><p>Whether he slept for seconds or for years, Sasuke did not know. Only that when he opened his eyes, Hagoromo was waiting for him. They were in the white space where they had first met when Sasuke was almost dead after Madara had stabbed his heart, but the physical world still breathed beyond the mindscape.<p>

"No," Sasuke refused. Hagoromo opened his mouth. "I should be dead!" Sasuke interrupted, frantic. He should have been killed right away; he wouldn't have been able to defend himself against what the Tailed Beasts or the Shinobi Alliance could and would do! (Great powers don't like being contradicted.) Sasuke looked at the Rikudo Sennin sharply. Hagoromo didn't even blink.

(The Other World was reacting to your change of heart,) the sage explained, (but I managed to interfere. I am as proud of you for changing, might I say aside, as I am about Naruto convincing you to change.) "The Other World," Sasuke echoed, "as in the afterlife." Sasuke's irritation was palpable. "You _stopped_ me from dying?"

(The Other World may be thought of as such,) Hagoromo first elaborated with the patience of a saint, (though I would consider it more of a living organism. Not all dead souls pass to the Other World, either, and the ones that do are spirits of chakra. Humans are children of the earth; the kind of myself, my mother, my brother, and my sons, however, are of chakra. We are a different story. _I did not stop you from dying,_) Hagoromo added before Sasuke could open his mouth.

(The Prophecy needs the Blue-Eyed Child to live, and Indra — who is in and of the Other World — refuses for the hosts of his and his brother's chakras to ever get along. Uchiha Madara and Senju Hashirama were already dead when they reconciled; you and Naruto, however, managed to resolve your issues in the same lifetime. I certainly couldn't have both of you dead before the world could enjoy peace.)

"Indra wants me to forever hate Naruto, and some unseen powers behind a prophecy would go back a few seconds in time to have me killed if it meant Naruto could live," Sasuke picked up. A prophecy was still fulfilled even if a few seconds were tampered with, apparently. It was oddly ironic, in the end, that higher powers wanted Naruto and Sasuke to kill each other with only hatred between them, and that love did save lives. _Naruto, why didn't I listen to you in the beginning?_ "You just pulled me out of their clash? Now it sounds like you killed me."

(Chicken and egg,) Hagoromo mourned, (the actions of the Other World or of the powers behind the Prophecy caused the other, just as your and Naruto's deaths or my interference caused the other. Regardless, the undeniable result is that you now have been slightly misplaced. In the future or the past, I do not know.)

"And Naruto?" Sasuke asked. He had just started accepting Naruto as a precious friend and brother, but now the stubborn idiot could be dead? Hagoromo was predictably silent. Sasuke's heart thumped in fear, and he opened his eyes for real.

"Already awake, Sasuke? I was just about to tell you that breakfast is ready." Sasuke dazedly nodded once in confirmation, and he watched his mother leave his childhood bedroom towards the source of delicious smells. Sasuke leapt for his window, stumbled with the change in his physical height, and desperately dry-heaved over the sill. He had been "slightly misplaced?" His family was _alive_ — he must have been no older than ten! Sasuke would have preferred an age where the clan was already dead; then he could go over his angst alone, and no one would wonder why.

"Sasuke?" Mikoto called from the table when her youngest son took too long. Sasuke shuffled into the kitchen and eyed the simple breakfast of rice, barbecue, and vegetables. Fugaku should have been at the police station, as he always reported in early, but Itachi would be coming to the table any minute now. "May I go to the market and buy tomatoes, mom?" Sasuke shyly requested. Mikoto smiled from where she sat. "Is that it? Go ahead — but don't go alone." Before she could summon Itachi, Sasuke stepped in with, "I'm just going to Small Stop, and it's just around the corner." He tried to look excited to go outside the compound alone like all the older Uchiha kids could do.

The second Mikoto nodded, Sasuke jerked for the door, remembered himself, kissed his mother on the cheek, and sprinted out of the house, feeling sick. Itachi came to the table just in time to see his brother disappear out the door.

* * *

><p>Death was an empty embrace. In fact, in all the times Naruto had fallen into the unconscious, near-death state of a fading life, he remembered nothing between receiving the fatal blow and waking up in medical care. This, however, was not one of those times; emptiness had given way for the ambience of the Tailed Beast Psyche Plane, and Naruto found himself looking at a ring of the Tailed Beasts with himself at the centre.<p>

"What the heck?" Son Goku exclaimed. Everyone present shared his sentiment. "The last time we were all gathered here," Naruto dazedly noted, "we were fighting Kaguya. Didn't I — are we _all_ dead?" He noticed a small figure ontop of Isobu. "Oh! The kid is here, too!"

The very young-looking Mizukage twitched. "I am the Yondaime Mizukage, more skilled and experienced than a teen like you—" Naruto was glancing around. "Hey! Are you listening!" A calmly confused Utakata sat ontop of Saiken, silently watching. Naruto noticed him anyway and realised, after observing Yagura's and Utakata's behaviour, that the Kiri nin did not recognise him. When Naruto looked around, the three of them were the only jinchuuriki present.

"We remember, Naruto," Matatabi assured. "It seems that the external world has rewinded, however. As you can see, not all jinchuuriki have a perfect bond with their respective bijuu. Yet." Naruto tilted his head, trying to work with the information that he had died, but not completely, and that he and the bijuu were physically touched by some outside force. "Where are Eight-o and Yugito?" Naruto asked, starting with the simple. Matatabi gave a feline smile at Naruto's concern and curiosity.

"They are not accessing this plain," Gyuuki answered instead. "It seems that Utakata is here because he is currently sleeping," Saiken explained, and unnecessarily added, "for the fourth time today." Speaking over Utakata's vocal, flustered reaction, Isobu informed, "According to what I sense, Yagura is here to escape his personal mindscape because Uchiha Obito is controlling him with the Sharingan." "I have been here for years," the Kage impatiently elaborated with a calculative expression, as his turtle companion should have known the detail. The dots were slowly connecting.

"You're not dead, Naruto," Kurama stated with the intent to inform, though he simultaneously sounded shocked and relieved; he had sensed his partner fall, after all. "If he is, the Old Man's prophecy won't come true," Shukaku haughtily pointed out. Kurama ignored him. Naruto thought about his last moments. _And Sasuke…?_

"A great force seemed to act on you," Matatabi informed Naruto, grabbing his attention, "but it also seemed to act against you. Your sage paths chakra has done you good; your soul has not been torn in different directions, and your spirit has not failed. As for the state of your surroundings…your body…."

Naruto opened his eyes.

His body was on fire. At least, it felt like it; a raw, burning pain was clawing within Naruto, and he knew it couldn't be hunger, because the last time he had suffered from such starvation was as a child in the bias orphanage—

Naruto stumbled onto a dusty road he immediately recognised as the one that ran near the centre of Konoha and by a certain orphanage. His memories denied this as an impossibility, because Konoha had been destroyed twice since his early childhood — first by Orochimaru, then by Pein — but the nostalgic, busy scents of wood, food, and sweat came to him, and smells were for forever. Naruto stood up and found himself shocked by his tiny hands. The pain still raged within him. "I can't be starving," Naruto told himself, before he suddenly lurched, recognised a kick of chakra, and chuckled grimly. "Yeah, this isn't just hunger."

Kurama's voice frantically cut through Naruto's thoughts. _"Your body is reacting to our refined chakra and bond – the seal is changing, and there's no pathway for it to follow. Unlock your chakra coils!"_ Naruto gritted his teeth and made the ram sign, willing his reserves to open and evenly release chakra so as not to shock his body. Someone gasped, and Naruto turned his head just in time to see an angry and frightened adult of the orphanage's faculty throw the closest object at the village jinchuuriki trying to mold chakra. A blur knocked the projectile aside before Naruto could react.

_Sasuke?_

Then the weight of refined bijuu chakra hit Naruto before he could unlock his reserves, and he recoiled, quite _literally_ sick to his stomach, falling to his knees before he could consider saving face in public. "Hey, are you alright?" That sounded like Sasuke, younger and with a hint of fear that Naruto had never heard before from his ex-teammate, but the darkness was closing in faster than Naruto could consider how to react to the Uchiha. Naruto tried to say something helpful, like going to the hospital or unlocking his chakra coils, but his thoughts came out as mumbles before he fell unconscious.

Water _raged_. Naruto stood up, noticed his teenage height had returned, and was rudely swallowed by a wave of water before he regained his bearings and stuck his feet to the floor with chakra for a good measure. Naruto plowed through the churning water of the violently shaking sewer, and when he arrived at Kurama's cage, the quaking had intensified.

The metal prison bars were halfway morphed into the torii-like doors they were supposed to be. They were also stretched and twisted, and the weak paper seal at the centre of the bars was partially wet from the spray of active water below. Kurama was trying to keep the shock waves of the water against the walls to a minimum with his claws, but a fox could only reach so far from a cage.

Naruto grimaced at the sight. "The villagers are going to kill me," he said. Kurama snorted. "I'm containing the obvious issues so that your chakra doesn't spike abnormally, but you're going to have to work fast," the fox advised. Naruto gave a crooked grin and jumped up onto the centre of the semi-doors. "Without unlocked chakra coils and without letting anyone sense your chakra in my physical body?" Naruto clarified wryly. "This might take longer than 'fast.'"

He tore the paper seal off.

* * *

><p><em>What a day,<em> Itachi thought. Sasuke had burst in the house through the middle of breakfast looking very lost and helpless with the village jinchuuriki slumped on his back. Mikoto had had to use deliberately slow, calming words with Sasuke as she and Itachi laid the jinchuuriki onto a futon and placed a cool towel on the Uzumaki's forehead to help treat the fever raging through the child's body.

Mikoto fussed over the kid, Naruto, like Itachi had never seen except when Sasuke himself had fallen ill under pneumonia once, but Itachi soon also shared Mikoto's deep concern when he felt little Naruto's forehead as he laid the blonde down. Naruto's temperature was dangerously high — enough to warrant a trip to the hospital — but after Sasuke explained how he had come across the blonde — _an adult threw a glass bottle,_ Sasuke had blurted when he burst in, _I was reacting, he was on the ground, I couldn't just leave him_ — Mikoto, Itachi, and eventually Fugaku agreed that they would rather care for Naruto at home instead of risking biased doctors harming the weak child.

Sasuke hovered by their patient's bed nearly every day since then with the most painful look Itachi had ever seen, so defensively blank while a storm of conflicting emotions — anger, sadness, wonder, regret — raged beneath. Itachi carefully watched as his little brother slowly progressed from standing by the doorway, to Naruto's bedside, to sitting by the blonde, and then — tentatively, delicately — holding Naruto's hand. The Uchiha household's patient was unconscious throughout, with only knit eyebrows and a stiff body reflecting the discomfort of a fatal fever. Itachi hoped that however the blonde's health may conclude, Sasuke would walk away as unscarred and prone to smiling as Itachi knew his little brother to naturally be.

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><p><em>Idiot. <em>

Sasuke clenched his fists. Why had he acted so impulsively — and how could Naruto attract a fever? Didn't the Kyuubi's presence boost the strength of Naruto's immune system above the average human? Not like Sasuke would know; he had learned of Naruto's status as a jinchuuriki in the middle of trying to kill the blonde, and by then, Sasuke had had no interest in ever seeing Naruto again. His memories of Naruto's well-being were hazy before that. The last time they had been together outside of a fight was….

And what if Sasuke had upset history by picking little Naruto up off the street because the blonde was sick? Maybe in the original timeline, Naruto's orphanage — if he was still accepted by one — took care of him, where the blonde likely then recovered quickly in a familiar environment. In this timeline, however, Sasuke had brought the young, sick Naruto to the Uchiha compound: an enclosed area rich with the presence of chakra-users and possibly overwhelming for the orphan.

The young, developing body was _so_ delicate.

Thus, Sasuke gravitated to Naruto's side, conscious of the knowledge of having killed the future Naruto and anxious that he may end up killing the Naruto of the past — or was it present? — as well. The Uchiha household's patient was not a ninja or even a genin, but a civilian who didn't understand what it meant to have one's own life taken by another person. Sasuke would have innocent blood on his hands if young Naruto didn't make it through the fever, and the thought made him clench his fists.

_Idiot. _

Fortunately, he was not the only one of the house watching over Naruto's well-being, but no one else _thirsted_ for the sight of Naruto opening his eyes more than Sasuke. He hid it well — his family only saw his silence as wonder in seeing possible death for the first time as Naruto's condition never improved — but no one had taken senbon, snakes, and sand for the blonde like Sasuke did, or had shoved a hand through Naruto's chest as a child and later returned with a kunai for a good measure like Sasuke did.

He _needed_ this. Holding Naruto's hand in his own didn't feel like enough, as if Sasuke's heart would only stop aching if it were _his_ Naruto's hand under his palm — _his_ Naruto's pulse meeting Sasuke's fingertips. There was a time when war was the only force keeping Sasuke from ignoring or killing Naruto because the blonde's yang and Sasuke's yin were the world's only chance at being saved from Kaguya. Now, Sasuke found himself wishing for a war just to feel his Naruto's presence again.

"Otouto?" The guest bedroom door slid shut as footsteps neared the bed. Sasuke was getting used to the word and his family's voices. He hoped that his supposed curiosity and worry over the household's guest covered for his uncharacteristic silence when the family made themselves known to Sasuke from speaking to him, touching him, or walking through the house and sounding a pattern of creaks so achingly familiar to him that it hurt.

Itachi stood by the seated Sasuke and joined his younger brother in watching their blonde guest breath slowly in unconsciousness. Itachi felt Naruto's forehead. "He's improving," Itachi said. Naruto's faintly pained face looked no different from six days ago. Neither did Sasuke's. Naruto's fever may have had lifted a degree, but his health was undoubtedly still low, and judging from the complete absence of a reaction from Sasuke to Itachi's words, the young Uchiha understood this.

"…I've never witnessed a slow death this close before."

"Oh, he's not dying," Itachi hurriedly assured, placing a comforting hand on Sasuke's head. The boy flinched, and Itachi withdrew his hand, worried but silent. "Don't worry, otouto, he can get better."

"But will he?" Sasuke murmured, and Itachi held back a sigh. His little brother could ask the hardest questions sometimes.

"It's a simple fever," Itachi said. "Father, Mother, and I sensed nothing wrong with his system; Uzumaki Naruto just has to fight this on his own."

_Uzumaki_. Sasuke's fingers twitched in reflex. The norm for older people was to refer to children by their first name with an added -kun or -chan. Sasuke had forgotten that Naruto had had the entire village against him — or not for him, which was practically the same thing — in this time. From his childhood memories, he didn't believe in the supposed fact that all jinchuuriki suffered from ostracism or hate, because Kakashi, Iruka, and even the Sandaime had had a soft spot for Naruto. Looking back, Sasuke reprimanded himself for not realising that the three adults were _all_ of Naruto's world.

_Why do you go this far for me! _Water, weakness, blood. The first time in the Valley of the End, where two genin fought for their happiness.

_This is one of the first bonds I've ever had. _

Sasuke had not understood what Naruto meant. He had not grasped back then that he was part of Naruto's world, too.

The hand under Sasuke's palm stirred. Itachi watched his brother watch Naruto as the blonde slowly opened his eyes to Sasuke's face…and smiled. Itachi nearly jerked back in surprise when he looked at Naruto's genuine expression; Itachi had never met a stranger who so quickly and obviously loved others in the first meeting. Sasuke must have been very happy to have his attention returned—

_Slam!_

Hm. Itachi had not expected that. It wasn't like Sasuke to run out of a room and slam the door behind him. Itachi sat in the chair where Sasuke was mere seconds ago. "Are you thirsty, Naruto-kun?"

* * *

><p>Naruto never knew young Sasuke to be shy or stiff. The ten-year-old Uchiha avoided Naruto like the plague, but Naruto was persistent and creative. "Your hair is like the moon," Naruto said one day. Sasuke pretended he didn't hear and continued to focus on planting flowers outside his bedroom window; Sasuke didn't want anyone to see if he'd been vomiting out his window whenever he was startled awake from a nightmare, and while nothing had come out so far, he still wanted to play it safe. It was easier to water flowers than to bury sick.<p>

The guest room window was next to Sasuke's bedroom window, so Naruto only had to lean a little further out to see Sasuke better. "I don't mean the common moon, of course. I mean the new moon." "The blackest one of all?" Sasuke retorted without looking up from his flowers. "It's not black," Naruto pounced, happy to hold a conversation, "it's just really dark, but even then, you can still see it."

"If my hair is the moon, then yours is the sun," Sasuke drawled without thinking, and immediately regretted it. He ignored Naruto's childishly awed, "Wow, I never knew you to be poetic!" and focused on curbing his dark thoughts. Teenage Naruto had been yang, or sun, to Sasuke's yin, or moon, but Naruto had not stayed like that up till death — brilliant, constant, unmistakable. No; Naruto's passing had been a subtle, barely noticeable stillness of the body and breath. It was the end of a quiet hero or a nobody — ill-fitting for Naruto either way — and Sasuke was the Reaper who delivered it.

_I may not see you again, but I warn you…. Don't kill Naruto. You will live to regret it. _

The Kyuubi had foreseen this before either of them could discover a fondness for Naruto. A sadder fact was that the difference between Sasuke the malicious fox lied in the concept of _too late_. This time, Sasuke vowed to keep his distance; if Naruto never considered him a friend, the blonde would never be hurt by Sasuke's actions.

Naruto, meanwhile, had also recalled his memories of a lunar yin and a sunny yang, but with fondness. He wasn't looking at _his_ Sasuke, this boy who was planting flowers, but Naruto loved the young Uchiha all the same. _This_ _time, I will not fail you,_ Naruto silently promised. Friends never gave up on each together, after all, and Sasuke was his first, best friend.

Within a week, Naruto fully recovered from his fever and was sent back to the orphanage disappointed, as he had been hoping to befriend Sasuke at an earlier age so that Sasuke would have more emotional support after the Uchiha clan massacre. Naruto didn't know how he could act on his knowledge without attracting negative attention, but he sincerely hoped he could save everyone, including Itachi. The progress on at least befriending Sasuke had unfortunately been negative; the dark-haired boy seemed to prefer training over letting Naruto even talk to him.

The next time they saw each other, Naruto had been caught in a middle of a prank involving Sarutobi's glass ball gone wrong. He was dumping apologies and conspiracies on the Sandaime and the Council as Sasuke, Mikoto, Itachi, and Danzou were brought to the Hokage's office for safety and questioning; the rest of the Uchiha clan had been wiped out by Itachi and presumably Root members before Naruto's prank was able to bring the massacre to light.

Two time travellers believed Root was innocent of the massacre and instead suspected Obito, but said nothing. Itachi didn't speak up about what had truly gone down, either, and Naruto and Sasuke followed Itachi's example to not introduce "Uchiha Madara" to the Council, yet. For Itachi, it was to not give the masked man he had met a reason to go after Itachi or his remaining family; for Naruto and Sasuke, it was because they didn't want the village to panic and inadvertently alert Obito before they or the world were ready to face another war.

That week, Danzou was sent to prison, Root was disbanded, and Sasuke and Naruto returned to the academy with an unusual dedication to training, as if taunted by an unseen hourglass. Naruto feared that Sasuke secretly aimed to kill Danzou in revenge; when Naruto tried comforting or at least talking to Sasuke, the latter would only see a dead teammate from a future where he had taken advantage of the deaths of Obito, Madara, and Kaguya to start a revolution. Sasuke would then frostily tell Naruto to _bug off, darn it!_ and disappear to train or wallow in his angst alone. Naruto felt like he was failing his future friend and refused to cry about it at night. It was a difficult two years towards the creation of Team Seven.

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><p>AN: This is what happens when you listen to sad Naruto OSTs and Secondhand Serenade for hours.

Sorry if some parts felt rushed; with Sasuke and Naruto having time travelled and oblivious that the other had, there were many different ways certain events could go. Sai _will_ appear; he is too interesting of a character to pass over, especially with the potential Sasuke-Naruto-Sai dynamics of canon Team Seven, so bear with me until he debuts in this fic. The Mizuki incident i.e. how canon Naruto graduates will also be explained. A little rant about why Sasuke treasures Naruto in this story:

In canon, Sasuke's announcement that he wanted to be Hokage was a "Kishimoto, WHY" moment, which practically went against everything Sasuke did for the entire manga. I'm not writing a Sasuke with similar sentiments because I can't imagine Sasuke's shaky love for his brother translating to wiping out Konoha to erase everyone with a memory of the Uchiha clan, to suddenly realising he should treasure what Itachi treasured i.e. Konoha, and finding the Hokage position the best way to do this. Dude, you have to have brains _somewhere_. You're a missing nin whom the Raikage hates, the Kazekage lost faith in, and half of Naruto's friends would probably beat up if given the chance. (Like, I don't know, Tsunade. _Sai_.) Add it up.

Thank you so much for reading so far. Please review!


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